Convection
by chezchuckles
Summary: Heat Rises Spoilers! Kate reads Castle's latest novel and has some questions for him. "Heat, like work, is energy in transit." COMPLETE
1. Chapter 1

**Convection**

* * *

><p>"Heat, like work, is energy in transit."<p>

-Laws of Thermodynamics

* * *

><p>Kate Beckett is on page 28 of Castle's novel when she has to stop and put it down. Her hands are shaking. Again. But she hasn't just confronted a killer, she's confronted herself.<p>

In these pages.

And in seeing herself, she sees him too.

* * *

><p>She showed up at his book signing with the newly published novel, and he tried to walk away from her. But she chased after him. What else do you do with the man who loves you? But chase after him.<p>

She might not have made things right, but she made them okay. Enough.

And sitting in a swing on a late afternoon, he wrote a second dedication under the one inside.

Two words.

_We're back_.

She hinted to him that she'd already read it, but the truth is, she couldn't bring herself to read it before she saw him. She needed that time to be nothing, not even a daughter, alone in a cabin in upstate New York, listening to raccoons at night and the wind in the trees in the morning. Existing. Because, well, because she very nearly didn't.

She's read spoilers and excerpts because she felt like she needed to be prepared when she finally saw him. But it seemed wrong to buy the book (who is she kidding? pre-order the book) and then read it without him, without acknowledging him first. Creator and Author. Keeper of the characters.

So she sat on a swing and watched the book in his hands as he signed it, took it back from him with a locked-down heart, knowing that whatever he had written there couldn't be as bad, as destructive, as beautiful as what he'd already written all over her life.

_We're back._

It wasn't great, but it was enough.

* * *

><p>She traces the words now with her fingers, unwittingly finding the book in her hands again. Because she can't put it down yet, not when things are so unresolved with Rook and Heat, not when it seems so vital to know if they work out. If they can work out.<p>

Will they ever work?

Kate is ashamed to admit that she couldn't care less about the novel's murder investigation, but the stuff with Captain Montrose is digging at her. There are just. . .too many times she wants to pick up the phone and call him and ask why he put that in the book, or how he knew, or what it all meant.

She shouldn't call him. But she knows she will.

Despite the promise she made to herself not to string him along, not to tantalize him with the things he can't have. (Yet.)

She shivers and tosses that promise right out the window.

He answers on the first ring, which sends a frisson of pleasure through her that she doesn't stop to analyze.

"Detective."

"I'm reading your book," she says without preamble.

"Ah. I had the distinct impression you'd already read it."

"I couldn't until. . .no. I'm reading it now."

"You knew about the end."

"Message boards. On your fan site." She closes her eyes and berates herself for giving out that much information.

"Well, all I ask is that you spare me, Kate. If you hate it, I don't-"

"I don't hate it," she interrupts, surprised. "I like it. I. . .I love it." She flips to the front page and reads. "The ambulance lights lick the storefront. . .that's good, Castle."

He chuckles, but she can hear the nervousness in it. "You're on the first page?"

She laughs and turns back to her bookmark, a blank postcard advertising a local band. She picked it up at the bookstore too. Earlier today. "I'm on page 28."

She can hear noises on his end and then his intake of breath. "Ah. Well."

"I have questions."

"Impatient," he murmurs. "You could just read the end of the book."

"No. That would ruin it. And these aren't questions about the murder."

He laughs. "They're not?"

"I already have an idea. You're not predictable, Castle, but I do know you. Plus, I know the cases we've had this past year."

"Who says they have anything to do with this one?"

That isn't what she is calling about. She needs to get this out. "The stuff with Montrose. I just-"

"Ah, look. Kate. . .I. . ." He falls silent.

"Yeah?" She needs to know. And then there are harder questions, questions that tiptoe right up to the line she made for herself and swore she wouldn't cross. Because it wouldn't be fair to him. She's trying so hard not to be a bitch. She really is. Trying. It feels like she's failing.

"I don't know what to say. I'm a cannibal. I scavenge bits of my life, and everyone else's, and then it all goes into the mix. Pieces really."

She thinks on that for a moment, remembering how many misguided notions she had to face after the first book. How many of her own notions she had to put down, shoot between the eyes (is he as good in bed as he is writing it?)

But this stuff with the Captain. It isn't the information he is letting out in the novel that bothers her. It's the timeline. It's always been the timeline. When did he know this and why didn't he tell her?

"Just. . .how long did you think this - about the Captain? Or. . .when did the idea come to you, Castle? Before? Or did you write the whole book this summer?"

"No. Just the end."

She hasn't gotten that far yet, but something in his voice warns her. Talking on the phone doesn't cut it. She wants to see his face, wants to look up from the page and find him waiting.

Will he wait?

"Can you - Would you like to come over?"

"While you read it, you mean?"

She chews on her lip. "Yeah."

"You have more questions."

"I think I'm going to need answers. Just for my own peace of mind."

"Kate? About Montgomery. I didn't know. I really had no idea. Thinking about it this summer while I wrote, I realized that there had always been these little things that I never had answers for. But everybody has those things. No one is a complete open book. It's not like there were clues or mounting evidence."

"I should've seen it," she whispers, closing her eyes. It still hurts. The betrayal. She's had too many of them this past year. Michael Royce. Roy Montgomery. She might need to stay away from older men whose names start with R.

Oh. Well. Rick Castle?

To be fair, maybe so. To be fair to him at least. Her side aches, and she presses against the couch trying to ease it.

"There was nothing to see, Kate." His voice is pleading, a little insistent. "Nothing was there. There weren't any clues. It's not like his behavior changed or he dropped strange knowledge on us. It was just. . .he took care of you. He mentored you-"

"Damn it, I *know* that." She feels tears in her eyes and tilts her head back against the couch. She keeps her eyes wide open, studies the modernist painting she's bought recently to fill the wall. The woman in the painting is running from a world gone mad, a hand to her hat, her dress in flames, things crashing around her. It's dark and grey and bursting with determination. It makes her feel safe.

Safer. The ache eases a little. Castle's voice over the phone is another layer of safety.

"I just meant, Kate, that he took extra time with you. He paid attention. He made sure you were okay. But it wasn't like he was in love with you-"

Their conversation has suddenly gotten very close to that line she doesn't want to cross.

"-and not that paying attention to you only happens when someone's in - ah - in love with you - um - well, but. . .what I mean is. He did it because he saw something in you. Something good. He said that in the hangar before-"

Kate presses the heel of her hand into one eye and stops up the moisture threatening to spill out. "So that was your clue? That he paid attention, that he took an interest in me?"

"That's all, Kate. That was it. I'd written Montrose like that in the other two books, but I realized I didn't have a story for it. I couldn't explain it, there was no good reason for it."

"And my mom's - that was a good reason for it?" She knows she sounds illogical and a little strung out, but she's having a hard time dancing them away from that line without also getting too close to the other lines she's made. So many rules. So many lines circling her, barring her way, like a cage.

"It is, in hindsight. What I did in this one. . .well, you're only on page 28. All I meant to do was find a good backstory for the character, Kate. I wasn't - I didn't have any idea about the rest of it."

She nods even though she knows he can't see it, keeps her head tilted back on the couch, her eyes trained on the woman in the painting. Running. Does she run away? She's on a bridge, in transit somehow, running to escape the terror around her. But is she running away, or does she run towards something else?

Someone else?

"I can tell you what happens," he says. "If you can't stand. . .I can put you out of your misery right now, Kate."

"No. I want to read your book." She swallows, because maybe her voice gives too much away. But his comment is a good enough clue, though, isn't it? That things aren't as they seem, that the Captain Montrose of his novels isn't, can't be, a crooked cop.

"I'll come over," he says softly. "Give me twenty minutes."

She closes her eyes, suddenly regretting asking him. Too late. He's already hung up the phone.


	2. Chapter 2

Castle didn't touch her when he showed up. But he sits on her couch and casts his eyes around the room like he can't bear to watch her read.

When Rook shows up at Nikki's apartment with an apology, Kate shoots Castle a look and flips the book around to show him where she's at. He grins from his side of the couch and scoots a little closer to peer at the page. His thigh is warm next to hers; she likes the way their shoulders brush.

"Yeah, that's the good part." The way he says it - the_ *_good* part - gives her an idea of what's coming next.

She flips the book back around, scans ahead, and blushes. "No. I meant, that apology he gives her. For not calling-"

He laughs. "Hey, I've learned. And then, when you did it to me this summer, I figured maybe I deserved it."

She swallows hard and shakes her head. "I wasn't trying to punish you." But maybe she was, punishing him for saying what he said while she was dying on the grass, for not saying it earlier, for saying it at all and making her deal with the mental anguish even while she had to deal with the physical anguish.

"I don't think I meant for the book to be my apology, but if it's working, I'll take it."

She smiles at him despite herself and shoves his knee with the book. "It's working."

He raises his eyebrows and lifts his arm to the back of the couch; she can feel the heat of his arm. "Wanna let me in on why it's working?"

She shrugs and rereads the last part of it, sifting through the stuff in her head and trying not to say the wrong thing. "It shows that you understand why." Kate leans back against the arm of the couch, putting some distance between herself and his body.

"Why? Why it was supremely stupid not to call you all summer? Why it was hurtful? Why you deserve a little more respect than that?" The edge in his voice warns her. She glances up and can see he's still angry with her. For not calling. She deserves that. But she can't exactly tell him why she needed that time.

_Sorry, Castle, I had to figure out if I could live with you loving me._

"Yes," she answers instead. It was hurtful. But she needed to know, without him, what he was to her. What he is. What could be, if she would just be given the space and closure to be herself and not Detective Beckett. But she doesn't know how to do that yet, be that.

She swallows and bends her head back to the book, but it's harder to get lost in the rhythm of it when he's watching her, when he knows exactly what she's reading, and what Rook and Nikki are doing. And of course, the brief description leaves her wanting; it leaves entirely too much to the imagination when what she wants are details, a glimpse into Castle's fantasies, verbal mast-

His fingers squeeze her ankle for her attention. Her heart is pounding and now his hand is on her leg. The arm along the back of the couch lets his other hand lay very close to her cheek; his fingers lift and brush her skin. She lifts her eyes from the page. "I really did learn my lesson, Kate."

She bites her lower lip. "Rook sure did."

"He's not me but. . .the words are mine."

She nods. His fingers brush her cheek again.

"And I had hoped. . ." He shakes his head and she wonders, desperately, what he hoped. But she's afraid to ask. That's a past tense kind of hope, a hope he no longer has. Did he hope, once, that he meant more to her, enough to her, that she would call, that she couldn't do without him for three months?

If only he knew. . .

She sighs and goes back to the book, shoving that out of her mind.

* * *

><p>When she reads Nikki's conversation with the woman administrator, ice water runs through her veins. These words Castle put in Nikki's mouth about her mother's murder, about what it means-<p>

_Now it's not so much revenge as justice. Or maybe closure._

And then the woman's response to that, the woman who lost a daughter but gained justice:

_But let me tell you what I've learned. . .There is justice. But there is no such thing as closure._

Does he write these things knowing she'll read them? From the first novel, she's felt like he's hidden messages to her in every chapter, as if there are things he can't say to her face, but he can say in story.

She's read them all, stored them inside herself, behind the wall. Words are power; his words especially, and especially over her. And now all those words are unfurling, reaching for the light.

"Is this real?" She pushes herself down the couch so that they sit side by side; she puts the book in his lap. She points to the page.

_But there is no such thing as closure._

"It's real." His fingers splay over the page, as if trying to keep her from reading more. His hands are so broad, such long fingers, and she has a flash of those fingers wrapping around the back of her neck and dragging her close.

She presses her hand to her side, tries to ease the flaring ache of her scar. "Who said it?"

"A woman from a support group I went to."

She studies at him, her head angled to see his face. "A support group?"

"Couple years ago. When I first met you. And had the character in mind. I asked if I could sit in with them for background information on what it means to be a survivor, and a victim. To have someone in your family murdered." His face is in too many shadows for her to see clearly.

"A support group," she repeats, using her fingertips to touch the skin that stretches tightly at the scar.

He bobs his head, takes a quick glance to check the progress of her fingers. He's been paying entirely too close attention. "A woman there told me that. I asked her if I could use her line, and she said she hoped it helped someone someday."

And he's chosen this novel to pull it out, to use against her. Against her walled-in heart.

"Kate. It's about to get really good after this," he says, wriggling his eyebrows at her to dispel some of the tension. "So unless you wanna want to stay up all night reading-"

"All night? For this?" She knows she's purposefully goading him, but she can't help slipping into it, the familiarity of their banter. It fits like a well-worn shirt, loose and soft. She wants to curl up in it and sleep. Safe.

"Hey, I know you're a fan," he smirks. "Message boards? Oh I know. You're Nook4ever!"

"Nook for what?"

His grin widens. "Yeah. Don't act like you haven't heard that one. You know, Brangelina. Bennifer. Nook."

She ignores that. "Stop changing the subject. You're just trying to get out of this." She smirks back, recognizing just how close she is, how much of her toe she keeps putting over the line. Unable to help herself.

"You're gonna keep me locked up with you until you finish it, aren't you?"

Oh, that's so tempting an image. She makes a great effort to keep her eyes on his face, to not let it show how much that appeals to her. A great effort. Which ultimately fails.

His eyebrow creeps up the longer she fails, the longer it stays on her face.

"You're no Stephen King," she says, but gently, as if she's apologetic.

He laughs and some of the terrible, revealing tension fizzles out. "Thank goodness for small favors, right?"

"In that case, yeah, I think so. You are much more attractive than Stephen King." She winks at him, pulls the book out from under his hand and presses it against her chest.

He grins back at her.

So not good. What is she doing? Why does she keep doing this? Is she really such a bitch? Toying with him, teasing his emotions, playing with him.

Kate glances down at his book. She's taken the dust jacket off because it was slippery and she likes the hard edge of the black cloth against her fingers. Her ribs ache today, that phantom pain of forceps and scalpel inside her guts, rib spreader still cracking her open. It makes it difficult to take a deep breath.

It's not because he's so close. It's because of the scar.

She winces but ignores the flicker of concern on his face. "Let me be the judge of how good it gets, all right? But you, Castle, are not going anywhere."

He laughs softly and shrugs his shoulders as if to say he's warned her.

She opens back up his book, still a little unnerved by having Richard-freaking-Castle in her apartment, his hand on her knee as she reads his book.

Wait. His hand is on her knee.

When did that happen?

And now, what in the hell is she going to do about it?


	3. Chapter 3

It's only a few pages later that it catches her by the throat. The case picks up and Castle's hand is still on her knee, but her concentration is on the book. Nikki gets reamed by Montrose and turns_ her face upward into the sleet and closed her eyes, feeling the hundred little stings of the falling sky._

Kate blows out a breath and teeters on the edge, very close to breaking, only she doesn't want to do that in front of him. No one else would fall into a pit of grief at the end of this chapter; it's only because she's lived that scene, lived that desolation. Still. Neither does she want to ignore the fact that Castle manages to get everything exactly right; somehow, she's got to explain what that means to her. If she can't acknowledge his feelings, she can at least acknowledge this.

"How do you know this stuff? All this. . .these things that happen and I-" She shakes her head and puts her finger in the book to mark the page. She's never told him these things. And still, he knows.

His hand around her knee squeezes, and suddenly she has to move, has to get some distance. She jumps up and takes the book with her.

"Want something to drink?" she calls, keeping her eyes on her kitchen, the fridge, the metal table that serves as a stovetop, and perhaps a boundary line.

She opens the stainless steel fridge, pleased by the cool air that wafts down. It makes her skin tighten, and the scar protests. A reminder is good. She puts the book on the counter.

"I'll take water," he says, entirely too close. When did he get up from the couch?

She pulls out the filtered water pitcher and sets it on the counter. Castle is already getting two glasses down and handing them to her, his side brushing hers.

"Kate."

She glances over at him almost against her will; hesitation and doubt are written into every line of his face.

"About 15 more pages. . .I don't think you're going to want me here for that."

She reaches for the book, opens it to skim ahead, but he presses his hand over the pages and catches her eyes.

"Kate. I don't know that *I* can be here for that."

He couldn't know, could he? He couldn't know that she knows what he said that day. But their conversation on the swings wasn't exactly subtle of her, was it? So he has to have an idea that she. . .

She isn't ready.

"I won't make you stay."

He nods and turns back to the foyer, headed for the door. Her chest aches, like a scalpel shoved between her ribs.

"Castle-"

He pauses; she sees the war with his common sense, his better nature, but he turns around. "Yeah?"

"Will you. . .stick close though?"

* * *

><p>She's glad now, that he warned her. Castle gave in and crashed on the bed in her guest room, saying they've had a long day and he'll read something or rest his eyes. She'll go get him when she has a new question. Or when she's finally finished.<p>

He's right, of course. It's almost exactly fifteen pages later that it gets uncomfortable, if only because she longs for it, for the way Nikki can walk into Rook's hug at the end of the day and smell his neck, rest there, safe. And then their little twenty questions game turns into a revealing and intimate look at two characters who aren't her and Castle. . .they really aren't. Those wouldn't be her answers to their game of questions, and she knows they wouldn't be his either.

Except, how can she be so certain of that? Despite the intimacy of hearing what Castle thinks might be Kate's personal landmines, spoken in Nikki's blunt voice, these things she's never talked about, it's strangely reassuring to discover that he's wrong. There are things he doesn't know. There are pieces he's making up.

So if Castle is making up these things, then the rest of it. . .

It doesn't have to mean as much.

Right?

* * *

><p>On page 99, Nikki realizes she's been playing politics, that she's gotten caught up in the game and has forgotten that she serves the victims and their families.<p>

It's enough. For Nikki. Who has no conspiracy entangling her every movement forward.

But it's not enough for Kate. When she walks home from the subway stop and lets herself into her cold apartment, serving the victims and their families isn't enough. The victories are made hollow by the emptiness, the echo down the hallway. A hot bath and a book aren't substitutes for finally, finally having the answers. Knowing why.

Why her mother? Why has her whole life been twisted into this malformed thing? This crippled shadow? What might have been still haunts her.

At least Nikki has Jameson Rook. Kate has darkness, and a wall, and no way of seeing through either.

He's right. She wishes she hadn't asked him to stay. She's not sure she wants him here for this either.

* * *

><p>Only a few pages later, this quick build-up of tension on the novel's case sucks her in despite knowing that there are worse things to come. Kate's read spoilers on his fan site but she didn't have a clear picture of all the details. She knows someone died, and she knows the end is painful.<p>

She just didn't know those two things aren't the same event. When Montrose tries to reign in Nikki on page 108, Kate can hear echoes of her conversation with Montgomery, his resignation that she'll always do what she wants when it comes to her mother's case.

Is this how she sounds to everyone else? To Castle? Is this how she sounded to Captain Montgomery in his last moments? Petulant and stubborn, unable to look away, not even to save her own life. He told her he just wanted redemption, and Kate wanted vengeance. The two weren't compatible.

By chapter 7, the book is so intense that her heart is pounding and her palms are leaving damp impressions on the paper. Kate gets up and heads for the guest bedroom, the book still in her hands, her eyes still reading, heading for Castle, needing company as she reads this.

He's lying on his back in a small pool of light from the bedside lamp, reading one of her Russian novels. He puts the paperback down - Tolstoy's The Resurrection - and gives her a long look.

"You're killing me," she says with a grin, waving his book at him. Even though she has to force the grin out, it already makes her feel better, easier, safer, just looking at him.

"What chapter?"

"Seven."

She watches him think back and then he sits up and grins as well. Kate moves to the side of the bed and crawls in next to him, then sits down cross-legged beside him, book in her lap. Her heart is still thudding out of control, and the impression of fighting for her life hasn't left her. Nikki. Fighting for Nikki's life.

"This is. . .holy crap, Castle. How does she get out of this?"

He grins wider and leans back against the wall. "Just gonna have to read and find out, Detective."

She glares at him, but he just laughs, pats her leg. "All right, stay here. I'll get you through this part, and then I'll get back to Tolstoy. I like watching your face when you get to the good parts."

She moves to the head of the bed and settles next to him. "You're just gonna watch me read it?"

"I could read it over your shoulder but-"

She scoots closer and shares the book, putting her back against his side, letting her head hit his shoulder. She seems to have stunned him both speechless and immobile. She looks at him over her shoulder. "Fast reader?"

"Can be." He shifts against the wall at the head of the bed and slides his arm around her waist, settling in.

She asked for it, didn't she? Was it stupid to to climb into the guest bed with him?

"I'm not slowing down for you. So try and keep up, Castle."

* * *

><p>"I forgot," he says softly, and turns his head from the book, loosens his arm.<p>

Nikki is running for her life in Central Park, seeking sanctuary, seeking help; gunmen are after her, methodical and thorough, hunting her down. She's trapped. Kate must be further behind than him; they've just flipped the page. And then she comes to it, the part he forgot:

_Heat envisioned a map of the park, and one word popped into her mind:_

_Castle._

Kate jumped, book tumbling from her lap, her heart pounding with the imagined adrenaline of Nikki Heat.

"I forgot," he apologizes and lets go of her, sliding away, putting his feet down on the floor. Castle picks up the book, finds page 120 again for her, and leaves it open on the bed.

And then he disappears from the guest room.

Kate reaches for the book.

Castle.

* * *

><p>When the gunmen are incapacitated, when Nikki is safe, but Kate feels most certainly that she herself is not, she reads this:<p>

_Still clutching her weapon, Heat leaned back against the wall, looking upward at the castle that had been her salvation._

She can't do this. Can she? Pretend she's never read it, pretend that she doesn't understand exactly what Castle means when he has Nikki run to Belvedere Castle in Central Park for salvation. Castle. Salvation. Sanctuary.

Kate's heart is pounding, but she's not sure if it's the life or death action scene or if it's seeing his name on the page, but not his name, reading all manner of secret messages into his writing.

Is this what he thinks? That he can save her. That he's her shelter in the midst of a life or death-

She shivers and stands up, prowling restlessly in the room, unable to unhook her mind from the book, but wishing it's still the escapism it used to be.

* * *

><p>Kate sobs when they find Montrose dead. The tears are yanked out from her like she's been choking on them, and his words, his book, have finally provided the swift blow to her back that she needed to cough them up. It is messy and loud, and she has to press her hands into her eyes to keep them back, the book caught against her chest by her drawn up knees.<p>

At some point, she realizes that Castle haunts the doorway, watches her curled up on herself, trying to be quiet and failing. He comes into the room and takes the book out of her lap and puts his arms around her. She squeezes her eyes shut and tries to breathe over the ragged ache of her chest but her grief is so strong that she only gasps. She hasn't cried for Roy yet, hasn't had time, and then time was past and she still hadn't managed any tears-

Castle sinks to the bed and sighs into her hair. She turns into him and slides her arms around his waist, hating it but not able to stop.

He rubs her back and murmurs things she can't hear over her weeping. It's only after awhile that she realizes his cheeks are wet too, though he is silent in it.


	4. Chapter 4

After her grief has mellowed into merely a deep ache, Castle murmurs something about his writing being so bad it's made her cry, which of course, makes her laugh. She pulls back and swipes at her cheeks, giving him the shadow of a smile.

"Hey," he says, his hand at her back. "If the book does this. . .Kate, you can stop, you know."

"It's not bad. It's. . .what I need." She drops her gaze to the black edge of the cover. "It's always been what I need."

She's said too much. But. He deserves to know. He ought to know.

"Kate."

She nods, lifts her eyes to his. "I'm good."

He waits for it, but she can't explain her confession, can't explore that right now, how his books saved her. She's trying to keep her mother's death out of this, as much as possible.

"So read then," he says finally. "Not much left now."

She nods, the bed bouncing a little under her, and Castle leans back, like he's going to leave. Kate slides over, silently offering him space next to her.

He studies her face for a long moment, then settles down beside her, their shoulders touching. For a second, there is that awkward moment where she doesn't know what to do, where to go, and then his arm is sliding around her waist and she's falling back against him. Back into their old position.

He lifts the book from the bed, opens it up on her knees.

Why is she doing this to him? To herself?

But she can't make herself stop.

* * *

><p>After that, it's a parade of phrases and scenes that are too much and not enough. So close to what she wants, longs for, and at the same time, everything she thought she had hidden away.<p>

Castle goes back to Tolstoy, sitting on the bed with her, holding the thin paperback in his left hand, his right palm flat against her stomach. His thumb makes occasional circles along her shirt, around her belly button, constantly nudging her consciousness.

When she looks over at him, he's absorbed in the book, but her heart rate is all over the place and she rests her hand on top of his, hoping to still his fingers, but it only increases the intimacy of his hold. To make it worse, she doesn't seem to be able to move her hand.

Kate has taken a pad of post-it notes, and she tags her book with yellow flags, all testaments to her cowardice. The things she should ask him but can't.

Not when she slowly strokes the back of his hand, and still says nothing.

Maybe she'll just give him the book wordlessly, let him leaf through the pages she's marked up. A way of telling him she gets it, she understands. But she just can't say it. Can't be for him what he needs, not like she is. He deserves better.

* * *

><p><em>Nikki did what she had done so often on this job. She put on her armor. There was a switch inside her, the one that sealed off her vulnerability, like triggering a fire door in the Met.<em>

The wall inside. That he somehow knew about even before she told him. How could he see her so clearly and still expect so much from her?

_It was Rook. . .It must have been his tenth call. And for the tenth time, Nikki didn't pick it up, because if she did, she'd have to talk about it. And once she did that, it became real. And once it became real, it was all over._

Pushing through to get Lockwood, to put him back behind bars. Hell or high water. Pushing through to that night in the hangar, knowing that all of it would unravel the moment Castle touched her.

_If she didn't put an airtight lock on her emotional doors, the beasts pounding on the steel plates to get out would eat her alive. . .She never imagined this tragedy cutting short the story Nikki thought she was telling._

Montgomery, Roy, her Captain, dying alone on the cold concrete, murderers bleeding out around him. Her Captain taking his last stand in some terrible, misguided attempt at redemption.

_He opened his arms, and Nikki grabbed him desperately, clinging to him, shaking, sobbing, as she had not in ten years._

Castle carrying her out of the hangar, cocooning her against the side of the car, holding her as she broke.

_A pocket of warmth grew inside her as she reflected on how fortunate she was to have a man like him in her life, who always sought ways to escape to brightness amid the dark._

If only she were whole enough, right enough to not only admit it, but do something about it.

Nikki Heat can. But Kate cannot.

* * *

><p>Kate cannot.<p>

But Castle stays at her side, his head against the wall, reading Tolstoy like he has no idea what's going on.

He must know. He has to know. But he pretends it's just another book, any old book, that when her breath catches, it's not because of him.

She's thankful for that. From time to time, she feels his eyes on her, watching her response, but she's warm under his gaze, able to let him stare without it making her self conscious.

Her fingers, when not pulling off a post-it note, are threaded through his against her stomach; she's not sure when that happened, only that it's a necessary anchor.

Sometime in the middle of a sentence about Nikki's methodical approach to the case, Castle's lips feather against her temple in a thoughtless kiss.

Her heart stops, her eyes blink, but he's still reading. Just reading.

And she doesn't know what to do.

What is she doing?

* * *

><p>Parts of the book she knows had to be written after Gates arrived (he didn't conceal her identity very well, despite making her a man), and the conflicting tensions build within the fictional precinct as well.<p>

He's so good at this. So good at this. He captures all the politics of the station; he manages to to make her feel, all over again, the way this feels - to have no one on her side, to not know where to look, to be lost.

But it's safe like this. It's safer in words on a page, in a world that doesn't exist. It lets her feel without feeling too much.

She begins to read again for the thrill of the mystery, letting herself be surprised by the little details Castle has thrown in that remind her of their cases. Pizza parlors and jokes she made; the boys' banter, strange suspects, Rook and Nikki working a murder board together. Things that soothe her rather than put her on edge, things that make this just a story.

A good book, a good detective novel.

When Nikki walks out on Rook, when Nikki doesn't trust him, Kate knows better. Kate feels more mature, wiser, than her fictional counterpart. And she celebrates that, leaning against Castle's side, her head now propped against his shoulder.

She's held together by stronger stuff.

* * *

><p>Chillingly, Montrose leaves behind a clue for Nikki, something for her to follow to find the truth.<p>

And it makes Kate wonder.

Did Montgomery do the same? Is this a piece of real life that Castle cannibalized? She hasn't seen anything like that, but it would be something her Captain would do. Has Castle gotten some additional information, some clue that she hasn't?

She was gone for three months; Castle and the boys worked on this alone. It's possible.

Has he kept it from her?

And then she dismisses that because here she is, proclaiming herself more mature and wiser, and doing the same as Nikki.

Ridiculous.

She knows this man. Just as Nikki ought to know better. Castle would never keep something like this from her.

* * *

><p>She has maybe 30 pages left when a word ripples across the page.<p>

Sea change.

Castle has used this word a lot in the book. For a man who argues over grammar rules and finds fault with her imprecise word choice, for him to use the same word over and over is strange.

Sea change.

Broad transformation. Becoming someone different from what you were before.

This is a message. To her.

Sea change.

Transformation is possible.

* * *

><p><em>But Rook didn't answer. . .<em>_That's when she realized it was Rook's blood on her fingers._

Kate's hands tremble.

She flips the page back, rereads that section. The gunshot, Rook falling over Nikki. Rook not answering.

Rook doesn't answer.

It's Rook's blood. He's been shot.

* * *

><p>That's the end? Rook in ICU; Nikki at his bedside, cold and alone and lonely?<p>

That's how it ends?

Kate breathes deeply and presses her forehead against the open book, struggling to keep her composure. She will not cry over Jameson Rook; she will not cry for a character.

Her heart pounds in her throat; she can taste her own blood, like that day in the cemetery, coming up in her mouth, drowning her.

It's possible though, that she might cry for Richard Castle. Who had to wait. Cold and alone and lonely. Because she was a coward.

Kate turns her head, her eyes seeking him.

He's asleep. Tolstoy is open, his left hand heavy over the pages. She shouldn't wake him up.

Rook. Castle.

ICU. Alone.

What has she done?

What has she done to him?


	5. Chapter 5

Still unable to process, unable to move, Kate flips past the last page of the story, then the next, finds herself at the acknowledgments. She reads without thinking, her eyes scanning the line until they stumble on her name.

And it's worse. A hundred, a thousand times worse.

_Detective Kate Beckett has shown me. . .how to make sense of songs._

The wording is awkward and the sentence is jammed in the middle of the list, like he'd been thinking of it the whole time, dwelling on it, but couldn't find a way to make it work. Like he wanted to say it but didn't know how to say it right.

All the songs make sense.

All. . .the love songs. Make sense.

Kate slides off the bed and stumbles out the door, down the creaking stairs, past the painting, to her couch. But she can't sit down; she keeps moving, making a circuit of her living room with the book clutched in her hands, her breathing erratic.

All the songs make sense.

After everything, the songs still make sense? After what she's done to him. . .

Here he is.

Why is she out here?

Because she can't do this. Not now. Not yet. She just can't-

But she's miserable like this, easing her way through every conversation, trying not to step over all the little lines, an endless balancing act. She's miserable when she sees the reluctance on his face, the sadness that can't be smoothed away, no matter how much time she gives him, no matter how many smiles, how many clever jokes. She can't erase her rejection, even if it's not a rejection but a _wait for me._

And if she's miserable, what about him?

Castle shot Rook; he made Nikki sit at the bedside of a comatose man, stiff and awkward, not knowing what to say.

That's what Rick Castle did on his summer vacation. While Kate focused on breathing without pain, Castle was doing the same.

So what is she doing out here? Pacing her living room like a caged tiger. All she has to do is go back in that room and stretch out next to him, watch him sleep, wake up with him in the morning.

So simple.

What does her dad always say? One day at a time, Katie; and if necessary, one hour at a time.

This is what it's come to. She's in recovery here, and the twelve steps might be the very things she needs, just like her father. She knows them by heart, has watched the program bring her father out of his darkness.

The first step? Admitting that her life is unmanageable; it has control of her.

Everything she does is orchestrated around finding her mother's killer and raining down justice. Everything. She can't sleep without dreaming about it; she can't have normal relationships without it ruining things, holding her back, alienating her.

And this summer, it got her shot. It nearly killed her.

Second: a power greater than herself can and will restore her.

Castle already told her, already promised her; his entire book is a love letter written to her, Kate Beckett. It is the only power that can save her, if she even can be saved.

Make a decision to turn her life over to that power.

Oh God. Oh God, how is she going to do this? Turn her life over to Castle?

No.

To this. To love.

All the songs make sense.

She really has made a mess of her life by allowing herself to get obsessed with her mother's death again. And it's a never-ending circle, a snake eating its tail, an endless loop of grief and recovery. And this time? Is it Castle who can make everything right? Is he really her salvation?

She knows this.

She's hurt him. She's hurt the man who loves her.

* * *

><p>She opens the guest bedroom door.<p>

He's still asleep, and she has tear tracks on her face, but-

All the songs make sense.

She's been cruel to him in her obsession, she's been selfish, but not anymore.

Kate slides into bed and lays down beside him, her cheek against her hand, the book curled against her chest. She watches him breathe, grateful he's here, grateful he came to her apartment when he heard the need in her voice over the phone.

Grateful he's waited, despite the wounds she gave him.

Number 8. Make amends to the people she has harmed whenever possible.

Kate stretches her hand out to bridge the distance between them, but something stops her.

Stops her cold.

She blinks and pulls her hand back, a strange and powerful clarity settling over her, seeping into her muscles, unknotting her insides. Whatever tears she may have shed are drying; she's thinking clearly again.

This is not the way.

How many times has she started the best relationships of her life in this awful condition? Broken and needy, eager for someone to save her. Royce. Will. Shit. She can't do this, not to Rick, not this time. This is too important.

Leaving the book, Kate gets slowly out of bed and heads for the kitchen, grabs a glass, fills it with water. She has to think. She has to get herself together, go into this as an equal rather than a silly and panicked-

She sighs. _Think, Kate. Be smart_.

All right. The timeline: Kate has always fallen in love with men who might save her, coming to them broken and needy, and finding herself unsatisfied and eventually cast aside when they inevitably can't fill the hole in her life.

This is her fear. That the gaping, hungry mouth will never rest.

With Royce, she was drowning in her grief and wounded by her father's deep, drunken darkness. She was in love with her training officer and she threw herself at him. And he got her promoted so he could transfer out.

With Will. . .

Kate sighs. Will left. Will couldn't make her better, and she spent all her time at work or reading a book (Castle's books), so he left. When Will came back, he acted like it was no big deal, like it hadn't broken her heart.

She needs to learn from her mistakes. If she creeps into that room with tears on her cheeks and her heart bleeding from a thousand cuts, she puts the responsibility on him; she makes it his job to heal her. To be her salvation.

It's not his job. It's not anyone's job to save someone else; people are fallible, people disappoint. Especially the people who love each other. Only time and distance and closure can heal her. Whatever this wall is, however it got there, Kate alone can circumnavigate it, can dismantle it, brick by brick.

He can help. But it's not his job.

*Kate* has to be better. She spent three months piecing together her broken body, and in that time, she built herself back stronger. But she hurt Castle; she hurt him. So it has to be worth it, has to mean something. These three months can't have been in vain.

But if she does this, when she does this, she does it right. Equal partners. For good. For always.

One. And done.


	6. Chapter 6

Rick Castle wakes on a dream of lips, a dream of a dream, his eyes opening slowly. The room is dimly lit by the bedside lamp but he's alone. A book on his left, a book on his right, but no Kate.

He hears a clatter of pans in the kitchen and his stomach clenches before he realizes that something smells amazing. Like breakfast. He slips his phone out of his pocket and checks the time. Still night. Late, late at night, but it's not breakfast yet.

Rick gets up, rubbing at his face, and pulls Kate's book towards him, running a thumb along the post-it notes sticking out. He smiles and shakes his head, brings the book with him as he heads into her kitchen.

Kate turns when she sees him, gives him a pleased look. "Hey there. Sorry I woke you." She's pulling plates out of the cabinet.

He squints at the amusement flirting with her eyes. "Really? I think you totally meant to wake me."

She presses her lips together to contain a smile, but it gets away from her. Her hair is soft around her face; she glows like the moon, warm milk before bed. "I realized I was starving. You hungry? I made a huge omelette out of stuff I found in the fridge. Which actually doesn't sound that appealing, but I've heard you enjoy strange omelettes."

His lips quirk. "You've heard? Hmm."

"Want some?" she says, holding up the pan as it hovers over a plate, the spatula in her hand.

"Yeah. I could eat."

"Good," she says, nodding to herself. She looks like she has a plan, like things are going according to that plan too.

She dishes out their late night breakfast and grabs both plates, then jerks her head towards the table, ushering him ahead of her. She won't let him grab his plate, and when he turns to the table, he sees two glasses of juice laid out already.

Yeah. She has a plan, all right.

"Sit," she says. He feels like he should pull her chair out for her, but she hangs back until he gives in and sits down. Kate puts one plate at her place, one at his, and then brushes her hand over his shoulder.

This is a lot of touching for Kate.

She sits just to his right at the table and watches him. "I finished your book."

Oh. So. . .the touch, the breakfast, is what? Niceness? Gratitude for a good read? He can't figure her out. Doesn't keep him from shamelessly fishing for compliments though. "Was it any good?"

Her lips quirk again and she lifts an eyebrow. "You know it was good."

He shrugs, takes another bite. "*This* is good. What's in here?"

She shrugs too. "You know. Stuff. Turkey sausage, cheese, eggs, corn-"

"Corn?" He studies the omelette with interest.

"Castle."

He lifts his eyes.

"I *love* the book."

She holds his gaze and the tight knot in his chest begins to loosen; his shoulders relax and he gives her a smile. "Thanks."

"You say a lot in that book."

Some of his tension returns, but her face is neutral and gives him no idea where this conversation is heading. "It's easier to say it in writing."

She nods. "Unfortunately. . .I'm not so great at saying it in writing, either."

He swallows his last bite and quirks his lips at her. "I've noticed the former. But your police reports are totally respectable."

She shoots him a look, a raised eyebrow, puts her fork down. "Well. Thanks?"

He laughs. "Of course, police reports are strong on exposition and not very good at in-depth characterizations."

Kate gives him that half-hidden smile. "Is that a fancy way of saying I'm a good story-teller, but my characters are flat?"

"Your characters have plenty of. . .lift," he murmurs, lifting an eyebrow in challenge.

She tries to hide the grin behind a narrowing of her eyes and another bite of omelette; Castle smiles back at her. If this is her plan, to flirt with him over breakfast, he can do that.

"Of course, if I thought I could get away with writing it instead of saying it, I'd do that," she says suddenly, causing him to almost choke on his food. He glances up at her, stares at the intense expression on her face.

"Are you saying I cheated?"

She tilts her head. "I'm saying you stole my line."

Stole her line? "What?"

"Castle. You stole my line. Isn't that plagiarism?"

He has no idea what-

"Making sense of songs?"

Oh.

"It was a good line." He knows there's something going on here, more to this than banter over a book. But what? "And I think I reworded it enough to get a free pass for that one."

She nods thoughtfully at him. "So. You get to. . .say it without saying it, bury it at the end of a book. You still want a free pass?"

His heart stops.

She's waiting on him to say something? To that? He can't defend himself for that. He doesn't want to. But he also isn't about to pour out his heart to this woman again.

"You said you had a wall, Kate. I'm trying to respect that."

She looks. . .disappointed. And relieved. The very fact that he can see that, all in her eyes, in the lowering of her shoulders, tells him she was battle-ready. But he's avoiding the skirmish.

"I'm not. . .the person I want to be." She's got her fists clenched next to her plate, and suddenly her eyes are on his, intense and focused. Determined. "For you, Castle."

For. . .him.

The relief that floods him is so strong, it knocks him off his feet. "I'm good with you now. As you are." He doesn't want to sound too eager, too desperate. He is a little desperate, but he also knows that he wants her for good. And pushing won't get him for good with her.

Her lips part on that secret smile, she shakes her head. "In spite of everything. Still. This deserves better. From me."

"This?" And he curses his reckless mouth for it.

"Us." She smiles back at him, shrugs her shoulders. "I don't know what we are either, but it's - it's there."

Rick laughs and shakes his head, leaning back in the chair, feeling battered, breathless, like a wave is pummeling him, dragging him out to sea. He keeps trying to swim against the current. And she still hasn't even really said anything. Not one way or the other.

Kate leans forward. "I owe you an apology."

Oh God, please don't. "Don't be sorry." Not for this. He can't survive if she's sorry for this-

"I didn't think about anyone else but myself this summer. I needed that time, but I didn't think what it was doing. To you."

His lips quirk into a resigned smile. "I know." She explained this already. And he gets it, gets her, even if he doesn't understand.

"But I should have. . .found a way. I'm sorry."

He watches the darkness in her eyes, its movement and depth. She holds his gaze, doesn't break.

After a long moment, he nods at her. He's not sure how to accept an apology from Kate Beckett, but that seems to work.

"I know I'm asking a lot of you," she starts.

He shakes his head. "It's not. I'm fine, Kate."

"This is. . .more than I ever ask of anyone. Have ever. . .I shouldn't. But I'm asking you to wait. I'm - I'm asking you to wait for me, Castle."

His hands tremble against the table; he puts them in his lap, stares at her. She is. . .asking him for a promise.

He breathes in around the feel of his floundering heart. "I'm already waiting, Kate."

She lifts her chin, swallows. "I know. I. . .but will you be okay?"

Damn. He lowers his eyes to the plate before him, the breakfast she made, the plan she had in place. Is this the plan? Draw his terrible secrets from him one by one?

"I don't know," he says honestly. "How long are we talking here?" He tries to laugh with it, tries to quirk a smile.

But her eyes are wounded, and he wishes he could lie. Say he's fine, no problem. Go on without me.

"I don't know," she says finally, picking at the edge of the table. "I don't even know where to start."

He wants to touch her. The need is so intense that his fingers twitch on his thighs. If he just could touch her. . .if he could make her see. . .but he knows that's not how to reach Kate Beckett. Never has been.

She takes a quick breath. "But-"

But?

"Tell me. . .how to help."

He frowns at her, confused. She gives away so little-

"How to help make it. . .okay."

Castle laughs and scrubs a hand down his face. He's got plenty of answers for that. They all include doing things she'd be completely unwilling to do, and-

And he's not going to ask.

"Don't laugh. I'm serious."

He lifts his eyes to her, and she is serious. "Yeah. Um. . .Kate. There's not. . .a way to help. I think it would just make it worse."

She lowers her head, and yeah, he does feel bad for that, but it's the truth. And she seems to want the truth from him tonight.

"Look, Kate. You want me to wait for you? I'm already doing that. You don't need to ask. And if I get a little miserable with it, that's my problem, okay? Let me deal with it."

She shakes her head and when she lifts her eyes to his, he sees the lines, the shimmer. It hurts her to know this. Well. He can't do much about that.

"I don't want you to be miserable over me," she says finally. "It shouldn't be miserable."

"Sometimes these things just are." He shrugs again and runs his hand through his hair. And then his mouth runs away with him again. "I mean, you've drawn a pretty clear line here. I want to bulldoze right through that line, but I can't. I won't."

"What. . .what's the line?" she says.

He laughs again, and he knows he sounds strangled. He feels strangled. "You're killing me."

"I'm. . .not able to say the things I should say. The things I want to be able to say. The things you've already said." Kate has her hand wrapped around her fork like she's afraid she'll fly into pieces without an anchor. He tries to concentrate on her meaning, not just the words. "Do you. . .know what I mean?"

The things he's already said. "In the book? You mean things I've said in the book."

She gives a little half-shrug, shaking her head at the same time. "And. . .before. When. When I was shot."

When she was shot. The time she doesn't remember? Right.

He closes his eyes, bows his head to his hands.

"Castle?"

So there it is. Between them.

She clears her throat. "You can say it. I just. . .can't say it. Not yet."

He jerks his head up. "Not yet?"

He can practically see her struggling with herself, struggling not to run, to change the subject, to roll her eyes. It will be a struggle. Won't it? It will always be a struggle for her.

But. . .damn. 'Not yet' is the closest he's ever. . .he never expected this. Castle gives her a slow smile, easing her into his relief, his. . .blissful relief. "I'll take 'not yet'."

She looks hunted, but that's okay. She said it. She said. . .she basically just said she feels it and can't say it. Which is so totally fine with him.

"So. That line?" he asks, lifting his eyebrows. "Looks like you kinda ran right over it yourself."

She swallows, chews on her bottom lip as she studies him. "I guess. . .so."

"Kate?"

"Yeah?"

"Just a friendly warning."

She blinks. "Yeah?"

"I'm gonna have to kiss you now."


	7. Chapter 7

It should be no big deal, should be sweet and cute and nice, being kissed by Richard Castle with her kitchen table between them.

It's anything but.

What it is is hot and wretched and overpowering. It's intense, painful, soul-stripping.

His mouth fuses to hers, unrelenting, taking her. When the lightning bolt of her shock burns clear, Kate finds her hunger pushing her forward, intent and single-minded. Castle is half standing to get at her mouth, and she raises up as well, chair clattering, her hands at his back, tugging him closer to her.

He maneuvers them away from the sharp corner of the table, pushes her towards the couch, but it's too far. She wants to press against him now, not later, not sinking into the soft furniture but hard, rigid, against the wall.

She's hurt him, but she can heal him too. She erase those three months with the wild pressure of her body arching into his.

Kate shoves him where she wants him; his mouth falls away, his eyes wide, but she takes a shallow breath into her lungs and stalks forward, backing him up to the wooden bookcase dividing her living room from the dining area. She takes a moment to appreciate the fact that she's got the author Richard Castle up against the end of her bookshelf, then steps into the wide stance of his braced legs, lets her hands feather across the stretch of denim.

His hips jerk. "Uhhh, Kate. . ."

"Castle," she says softly. "I have to warn you."

She can feel the pounding of his heart under her palm, the heat of his body against her hips, her thighs.

He takes a breath, his eyes darkening, his head lowering to meet her gaze. "Yeah?"

"Now it's my turn," she whispers and leans in to devastate his mouth.

* * *

><p>She favors his bottom lip and he's content to let her lead, the stroke of her tongue along his, the edge of her hip bones, the path of her fingers under his shirt. She rocks against him, the bookcase hard at his back, her teeth nibbling, her thumb pressing against his rib.<p>

And then he wants less, less fervor, less frantic, more of the careful tenderness he's felt towards her all evening. More of that 'not yet' from her mouth.

He circles an arm low around her waist, brings his palm up to cup her cheek, brushing his thumb over the angle of her bone. She shivers and slows her assault, breathing against his mouth, her body suddenly easing into his.

She shudders on a breath, like coming down after a crying jag, and he feels her curl into him, her arms along his chest as she strokes her fingers against his face.

He gentles her with a brush of his lips, lets their bodies ease back down into their own skins.

She leans her forehead against his, her breathing more and more natural as they rest. He draws his hand up her back, presses her into him for an embrace, an easy and loose hug that he uses to envelop her with warmth, with love.

"That's enough, Kate," he says softly. _Not yet_ is a long way from where she was leading them, with her driving body, her forceful mouth.

She lets out a long breath, almost a sigh, and circles her arms around his waist. "Will you be okay?" she says quietly.

"I'll survive."

"I want you to be happy," she says back. The _with me_ is unspoken, but he hears it loud and clear.

Castle cradles the back of her head, keeps her close to his shoulder. He doesn't want to let go of this moment. "I'll learn to be patient," he says instead. "And I'll take a lot of cold showers."

She laughs against his shirt; it tapers into a sigh.

"And hey, I'm pretty happy right now. This has. . .made my day. My month."

"I wish I could say. . ."

"Don't," he whispers, feathering his lips against her temple. "Don't, Kate. Just let it be."

"I'm not sure I know how to do that."

He smiles against the top of her head. "Yeah, that doesn't surprise me. We'll figure it out."

The silence between them deepens, a flower in the silver moonlight, exotic and rich. He wraps around her so right, so fitting, his thighs bracing hers, the rise of her chest flush with his. He lets the moment spool out, drag through the minutes, until even the arousal has mellowed into a kind of quiet hum in his blood.

This is when he goes back for her lips, placing his palms against the side of her face, his fingers in her hair, mirroring a stolen, abrupt kiss outside of a warehouse. But he keeps this one gentle, light, grateful. He pours his love into it, a nectar brimming into the cup of her parted, petal lips.

When he drifts back to watch it cascade across her eyes, all of it, the thankfulness and the light and the love, she stays perfectly still, as if trapping the moment, the feeling.

She searches his face for a long second, then licks her bottom lip. "I need to tell you something. Something you deserve to know."

He brushes his fingers along her cheekbone, against the baby-soft skin just before her ear. She tilts her head into his hand and takes a breath.

"When I was. . .at my worst, when I was so low. . .because of my mom, I found your books with her things. On a shelf."

He blinks, his fingers curling around the soft shell of her ear. "Your mom read my books?"

She nods and circles her fingers around his wrist, as if to hold him there. Her lips brush the inside of his forearm. "That's where I first found you, Castle. At the beginning of it all."

Oh. His hand trembles along her ear, he drops it to her shoulder, a little overwhelmed.

"Even then, you had me. Your novels made the world right again, put light back into it. They illuminated the darkness. I wouldn't be. . .half of what I am without those books. Without you."

He rocks forward, shuddering on the wide, dark edge of his love for her, overcome by the strength of her, the will to battle back, awed and humbled that somehow the things he'd written so blithely, so unknowingly, had helped to rebuild a young Kate Beckett.

His words. To her heart.

"I stood in line for three hours to get my copy of 'Storm Season' signed," she whispers, and he can feel the embarrassed grin against his neck. "You smiled at me."

His heart pounds with the lingering image of this vulnerable Kate with his Derek Storm book cradled against her chest.

"I smiled at you."

"When you took the book from me. And then you asked me my name, in that soft voice you get sometimes with Alexis, like you think you're going to have to gently pry the information out of her-"

Oh, Kate. Oh Katie.

If he thought her 'not yet' admission was a beautiful confession, this story of their first meeting is a gift. A gift offered by a woman who knows he needs more than a hot kiss and the pounding of his heart.

"I was terribly young, Castle," she murmurs, her voice tinged with laughter. "And you treated me like your daughter."

"I will definitely not make that mistake again."

"I needed it," she says instead. "And I'm glad you did. You signed my book and then you said, 'Don't stop looking for the truth.' And I. . .I heard you say it to everyone in line before me, but I knew, somehow, that it was just for me."

He closes his eyes, relief and horror and tenderness nearly choking him. In 'Storm Season', Derek overhears a woman's terrible scream and insists a crime has been committed, even though everyone tells him to drop it. Castle told each person whose book he signed that same line, a line from a publicist or agent, he's pretty sure.

"I wrote it on an index card and kept it taped up to my bathroom mirror. . .for years."

He might break at the adoration in her voice. How has he missed this all this time? How much she clung to his books. . .it's humbling and amazing and she's so very beautiful it hurts.

"Kate," he says, his voice low, ragged with her story. "I love you. I love you, Kate."

She closes her eyes, like that's a body blow, but he sees her, instead of having to shake it off, he sees her absorb it, pull it deep into her. And then she opens her eyes.

"I know."

He wants to hear it again. The flickering thing that gives him hope, like a phantom in the distance. "And you?" he whispers.

She looks at him, at first, like he's crazy, like she can't understand why he'd say that, and then it breaks across her face - understanding - and she opens her mouth on a smile.

"Not yet, Castle."

Not yet. He lets himself grin, lets it be wide and thrilled and hopeful, lets her see the way it takes over him.

She ducks her head and laughs into his shoulder, her arms tightening around him.

"Just keep telling me that, Kate. Tell me that until you don't have to anymore."


End file.
